A Word past Core

 

I just posted a youttube video of a class last week It was a day after the stress management class. And I'm struggling to find a word that describes what went on. Core development is a popular term, but it is not quite that. Anyway I watched the video of my class and realized something important was there. It is 90 minutes long with intro and an after class expose. I don't expect many people to be able to wade through the whole thing. But my feeling is some important stuff got transmitted. I am reminded of when I was first in Shingu Hikitsuchi sensei would off the mat give an impromtu lecture, which, I could not get because It was in Japanese. But my Mom sent me my tape recorder and Linda Holiday and I would start to tape the lectures, at first concealing the recording device. Finally when he found out we had recorded him, he would replay his talk, oftentimes transfixed as if he were hearing it for the first time even though it had come from him. We found out later he used to tape record Osensei and would later study the tapes. But he would hear things he himself had said and would then be moved to study those words. So I had a similar feeling with this video.

Like most people in Aikido of a certain generation, I have wondered what exactly Osensei meant by kototama. Hikitsuchi sensei taught kototama. And he daily chanted the Shinto prayers which are connected to kototama. When Robert Frager sensei and I overlapped on one visit, Hikitsuchi sensei taught a formal kototama class. Robert Nadeau sensei and I still go over Osensei's patterns of center/circle and fire/water along with the Su chant. I try to daily do the Amatsu Norito and Kami Goto as well as my own misogi pattern with the Su chant. Lately from my own personal experience of the past period of years(I can't say when this connection started) I've begun to notice a real connection between breath and sound/vibration. Which then of course feeds into movement.. I try to explain that in the video.

One thing that I try to highlight which I find is being lost in Aikido is that sense of primalness. If you hear Osensei chant on video he does not sound like a Shinto priest. There is a uniqueness to his sound, to his breath creating waves and other energy shapes, that has andprimal and at the same time otherworldly quality. I mean  in contrast to something that is made social, safe, and understandable, all of which are good in their own right. And I don't mean that it is dangerous, but it is primal. Hearing Osensei chant on video or Hikitsuchi sensei in the Shingu dojo of the seventies there was this almost raw quality that complemented the beauty, power, and intelligence of the sound. Again words fail me here. As much as the sounds(and accompanying movements) were practiced, there was a undescribableness to them. The sounds could make the hair on the back of your head stand up. And brought up a deep deep sense of heart and reverence. Again the words fail.

Much of this personally I have found interiorly in what you might call core. But it is past that term and even though intensely felt through the body it is more than just body. I guess what I'm struggling to say is that when we try to understand something we tame it, make it palatable. And what I'm trying to describe is never tame, never violent, loving but in a texture that words can't capture.

And my sense is that we think of kototama as a sound system. And anything that touches this original aliveness, or love, or primalness is kototama. Thus actions or movements that come from here, acts with power, are also kototama. In the last part of the video we have completed the movement section and go into discussion/lecture. I recount a basketball game I watched online in 2016. Warriors vs Oklahoma City Thunder. Overtime with seconds to go.. A rebound goes into Stephen Curry's hands for the last shot.. The game is tied. Everyone expects Curry to move closer to the hoop. But he without fear pulls up from 40 feet and nails what becomes the game winner. Now many players take that shot, but lo 4 or 5 years ago nobody did. But Curry making that shot gave me the great gift that in that moment I was just intensely glad to be alive. Not just because he had won the game. But the courage and largesse of that moment he created took me out of my normal state of just rooting for my team to win. The announder shouted out 'Bang!!!" not once but twice. I think Kevin Durant was so moved that he later joined the Warriors because he wanted to be a part of that. An enemy becomes a teammate. Aiki.....The next day there was an area Aikido gathering at the San Jose dojo. Everyone was talking about that shot. And even though it was not in a dojo, it was Aiki in another lineage. And I believe Osensei constantly produced moments like that. A purity beyond pure. A beauty beyond beautiful..My sense of that moment is irrational. I Can't explain the effect it had on me/ I can say being at the home birth of my daughter and catching her when she came out of her Mom tops that, but only that.

So here is the video. It's long and I didn't expect it to touch me the way it did. Hope you enjoy it.

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